So, I have my husband back, in spirit if not in body. That night was the end of Simon’s reign of terror, but it was a new beginning for John and me.
So, what about the physical side of our marriage? Let’s just say that John has always had a way with words.
♦
The members of the Circle each coped with the aftermath of our showdown in the vault in our own way. Orion took Lissa away to his ancestral home in Santorini for a month, letting the Aegean sun bake away the horror. Mark retreated into his books. Barry went on a three-day drunk.
I went back to work.
Daisy was sitting in the Eames chair when I let myself into the shop the next day.
“You nearly scared me to death!” I gasped.
“Well, you did introduce me to the door, dear,” she said, but she looked pleased. “I heard from Aaron again.”
I grinned. “He smells a rat.”
“That he does,” she said. She looked a bit like Frank. “He didn’t expect to win this easily.”
“It’s not about winning or losing. It’s about getting on with my life.”
Daisy patted my hand. “Good for you! Somebody has to be the grown-up.”
I shrugged off the compliment. “So,” I said, “how much longer do I get to enjoy your company? Don’t tell me that you have to rush right back.”
Daisy was suddenly serious. “I’ve been thinking about that.” I prepared myself to be disappointed. Daisy had always been very matter-of-fact about things: get the job done, move on to the next task. I wasn’t ready to let her go. But she surprised me.
“I’ve decided I’m going to follow your example and make a clean break. What would you think if I decided to get a place here?”
“You’re moving?” I was flabbergasted. Daisy had spent her entire life in New Orleans. As far as I knew she’d never even been on vacation.
She looked determined. “I’m thinking about taking a small place for six months, just a trial period. See if I like it.” Her eyes twinkled. “I might even buy a bicycle.”
As far as I knew, Daisy had never married or even had a serious relationship. She’d had a hand in raising all of us, and had given me my first training in the craft, but she had no children of her own. Her closest relationship was with her sister — my mother. “What did my mother say about this?” I asked gently.
Daisy shook her head. When she answered, her voice was soft. “A little distance might do us some good.”
I knew this wasn’t a simple decision for her. Our extended family would be furious at what they would see as her defection. They would blame me for luring her away from them.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Daisy said. “I’m a big girl; I make my own decisions. They’re just going to have to get over it.”
I gave her a big hug. I said the only thing I could say: “Welcome to Arizona.”
♦
Charlie was overjoyed when I called him and asked that he drop by and pick up the profits from the sale of Minerva’s tooth. “I can’t believe you found someone willing to buy that thing,” he said as he pocketed the cash.
“Actually, I bought it for stock,” I said. “You never know when something like that might come in handy.”
It was clear from Charlie’s expression that he thought such an object would never come in handy at his house. He thanked me again and quickly said his goodbyes.
It was Lissa’s first day back at work. Greece appeared to have agreed with her. Or maybe it was Orion. They both seemed ridiculously happy, and I was happy for them.
She approached my desk. “Would you like me to put this in the vault for you?”
“No, we’ll keep it up here for now,” I said. I opened the box to show her the wicked-looking baboon tooth. “I bought it for you.”
Conflicting emotions played across her face: horror, chagrin at not wanting my gift, horror again, and then finally resignation. “Thank you,” she said meekly.
I laughed. “Lissa, this is not like your mother giving you the tiger’s claw. We’re going to use this as a training tool, you and me. We’ll teach you to control it, and when you’re ready, we’ll transfer it to your care.”
Lissa hesitated — I’m not exactly the cuddly type — before she gave me a big hug. “I don’t know how to thank you,” she murmured into my shoulder.
“Just listen and learn. You were very brave, but that’s not enough. It’s time you started developing your own craft.”
What Daisy had done for me in my youth, I would do for Lissa. The next generation at Pentacle Pawn had begun.
– The End –
Pentacle Pawn: Book 3
The Viking Horn Spell
Amanda Hartford
Nineteen Cents Press
Prologue
Ten years out of college, Bop Lewis still kept in pretty good shape. She worked out in the gym down in the basement of her office building at lunchtime, and then grabbed a green smoothie at her desk. She’d even set up a stationary bike in the small living room of her condo so she could ride while she watched cable or played video games.
But Bop’s greatest joy was running, and she tried to get in at least a couple of miles every evening to shake off the stress of her programming job. She searched for months before she found a condo complex that backed up to the canal system. The place was a little pricier than she could actually afford, but to Bop, it was worth every penny to be able just to step out her door and go.
The Valley of the Sun is honeycombed with nearly 200 miles of canals. The waterways have been there for almost a thousand years, built by the ancient Hohokam. White settlers rebuilt the canals, and the city of Phoenix and its suburbs grew up beside their cottonwood-shaded banks.
A half-century ago, the Salt River Project graded and straightened the canals. They lined the channels with concrete and laid down wide dirt access roads on their banks. Now, every morning and evening, joggers and bikers hit the beautifully maintained canal trails.
The weather had turned cold tonight— at least for Scottsdale. It was early March, and just before sundown the temperature hovered around 45 degrees. Still, Bop Lewis wasn’t complaining; her sister back in Minneapolis was still shoveling snow.
Bop glanced at the 1950s atomic wall clock — the real deal, not a replica — above her restored vintage refrigerator. She had plenty of time to get a run in before it got too dark. She pulled out a chair at the kitchen table and laced up her running shoes.
The air was crisp as Bop stepped out on the canal bank. The chill had kept most of the casual runners at home, but Bop joined the regulars who were already out on the path. They established a polite distance between themselves, each in his or her own head space.
Bop had been a little bit off all day, but she knew that a good run would help her shake it off. She decided to leave her sweats on while she warmed up — it was chilly out here in the open. She pulled her hoodie up over her strawberry-blonde hair.
Bop walked along the dirt path, letting her muscles slowly warm. She allowed her breathing to drop into an easy pattern, anticipating the runner’s high to come.
Bop watched the shallow ripples in the green water. The water level in the canal was right up to the top of the bank tonight; there had been rain all week up in the mountains. She was startled when a big carp broke the surface right in front of her and scuttled across the water toward the far bank, twenty feet away.
She hadn’t slept very well last night, and she’d been groggy all day at work. That jerk Herve on the other coding team was making a move; Bop had to figure out how to counter. Bop was pretty good at office politics, but she hated the distraction. It kind of made her feel dirty. All she wanted to do was write her code and be left alone. Maybe she should go upstairs in the morning and talk to Maggie about it. Even on her Maggie’s days, she was more of a grown-up than Bop would ever be. Maggie would know what to do.
Bop forced herself to calm down, forced her breathing to regulate. As she did, the problems of the wor
k day started to fall away. If she could just get into the run and let it all go, everything would be okay. Her muscles were loosening up now, and she dropped the hoodie back. The chill felt good, bringing her wide awake.
A pair of runners were coming up fast behind her. She’d seen them out here pretty much every evening: that redheaded chick in the tiny Spandex halter top and bike shorts, her long ponytail swinging through the back of her rhinestoned pink ball cap. She always ran with that musclebound guy about two decades too old for her. Bop wondered how long the guy would be able to keep up with the redhead — and not just on the track. She grinned to herself as the mismatched couple flashed past her.
Bop stepped up her pace, feeling her muscles begin to go fluid. She heard more footsteps behind her and she moved all the way to the right. She focused on her footing, her running shoe falling only inches from the concrete canal bank. Bop had been on the swim team in high school, but she still didn’t want to fall into the fast-moving water.
She never saw it coming. One minute, Bop was building her stride, catching the groove. The next minute, she was airborne.
The other runner hit her hard and low, catching Bop with a body block just under her shoulder blade. At that same moment, Bop felt invisible hands grip her heart and squeeze. She doubled over with the pain. Already off balance from the hit, Bop toppled over sideways into the water.
She never saw the person who had hit her. Bop got only a blurry impression of somebody small and thin, wearing an anonymous hoodie and sweats just like everybody else on the trail.
The last thing that Bop Lewis saw before she drowned was her assailant trotting into the sunset as if nothing had happened.
Chapter One
The night this whole thing started, I left my Beemer in the parking lot at exactly 9 p.m. and headed for work, right on time. I’m Maggie Flournoy, and I’m a witch.
No, not the pointy-hat stereotype; I very seldom wear black unless it’s a cocktail dress. I’m a former college physics professor — physics — but for the past few years I’ve run Pentacle Pawn in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Scottsdale is a resort city in a beautiful desert setting. My shop is in the Old Town district that caters to tourists rich enough to fly in on their private jets for a few days or a few months, flying back out to Montréal or Monaco or their safari resort in Kenya before the Arizona summer turns nasty. The building exteriors in Old Town look like a Hollywood movie set from the 1930s, but inside you’ll find gourmet restaurants and designer goods from all over the world at prices that would stop your heart.
I own the building that houses Pentacle Pawn. Few people understand that it’s actually two separate businesses: the upscale retail shop in front that operates during normal business hours; and my specialty shop down the alley, by evening appointment only, that caters to the magical community.
During the day, the curious and the clients throng the street-front operation. My manager, Bronwyn, is my oldest friend. She isn’t a witch, but she is a gemologist and an expert on luxury goods. It really is a pawn shop, but you won’t find any dusty old stereos or cheap Chinese-made guitars in there. We specialize in unusual and exotic collectibles.
Bronwyn can tell the difference at a glance between a diamond and a cubic zirconia, and that also goes for furniture, vintage fashion accessories, rare baseball cards and artwork of all kinds and eras. Salvador Dali is one of the most counterfeited artists in history, but the sculpture and two paintings we currently have on display in the front shop are absolutely genuine, acquired from the original collector along with signed photographs of Dali presenting the work to his patron.
The other half of the operation — the one down the alley — also offers the unusual and exotic, but the value of the merchandise is not necessarily measured in cash. The clients of the alley shop bring family heirlooms and modern custom pieces ranging from a tiny seashell to the fossilized skull of an extinct ancestor of the whale. Each object is treasured by its owner as a vessel for magic.
My witchy clients reach the shop by walking down the cobblestone alley to what appears to be an oak door. It’s really three layers, with a half-inch thick sheet of solid silver sandwiched between two massive oak planks. The door is bound in wrought iron, and the oak is overlaid on both sides by a beautiful pierced iron lattice depicting the Tree of Life, its roots entwining a pentacle.
As soon as I opened the car door that night, I could hear a gong ringing in the alley. I recognized the sound, and I picked up my pace.
This was going to be fun.
Two scruffy teenage boys were trying to kick their way into the alley shop. They were dressed goth, in black T-shirts and jeans and black leather jackets adorned with cheap skull jewelry. Their hair was dirty and spiked. The tall one wore a nose ring; the short one had a studded black leather dog collar. Both wore blood-red lipstick.
I stood at the mouth of the alley and watched the kids try to break into my shop.
This happened once in a while. The boys probably thought they were breaking into the storage area for the retail shop up front. They were in for a surprise.
The door to the Pentacle Pawn alley shop has no handle and no visible locks. Auras are as individual as thumbprints, and the door incantation will admit only those people who have my permission to enter. Anybody else is taking their life in their hands if they touch that door.
The goth boys were doing just that. The tall one had a big screwdriver and a hammer, and he was banging on the door hinges, trying to dislodge the pins. He wasn’t making any headway; the magic that protects the door kept him from even making a dent in the wrought iron fittings.
The boys had no chance of getting in, but if they kept at it, the door was going to retaliate. This wasn’t going to be pretty.
In one sense, the boys were lucky. The door incantation is fully capable of killing anyone who tries to attack it with magic, but it could sense that these two were harmless.
I couldn’t say the same for the door. Good luck, guys.
I stood at the edge of the parking lot, watching. I knew exactly what was going to happen, and I suppose that I could have stopped it. But these two needed to be taught a lesson, and it was about to be delivered.
The tall kid hit the hinge one more time. The door hit back.
There was no warning and no flash. One second, both boys were bent over their task. The next, they were propelled backward across the alley and smashed into the brick wall of the building next door. The hammer and screwdriver hung in the air for a beat before they fell to the cobblestones.
The kids took off running before the hammer hit the ground.
I waited for them to clear the alley and run out into Old Town. It would serve them right if one of Scottsdale’s finest got curious about where they were headed in such a hurry.
♦
My workday begins when Bronwyn’s ends. As the sun goes down, Old Town fills with the rich and the famous. After flexing their platinum cards for fancy dinners with fancy friends, a few of those folks find their way down the alley to the oak door with a Tree of Life beautifully worked into its wrought iron binding.
As those goth boys discovered, there is no doorknob. If you have an appointment, the door to the alley shop will admit you. Otherwise, you cool your heels on the cobblestones until you get the message.
My assistant Lissa was already inside. Lissa is the daughter of an old friend of my family who has turned out to be not much of a friend, at all. But my issues with her mother have nothing to do with Lissa — except that Lissa is deeply embarrassed that her mother has tried to use her as a pawn.
Lissa left home the day she turned 18, but she didn’t get very far. Her mother Penelope drove her crazy, dropping by every evening to see how she was doing and bringing her lunch to wherever she happened to be working. Lissa realized she had less privacy then she’d had back in her own bedroom, so she surrendered.
Lissa was smart enough to know that it would never work for her to live under the same roof as
her mother again, so she compromised. Penelope’s property was enormous, so Lissa staked her claim to the pool house at the back of the estate. It was perfect: she could come and go by a private driveway, and Penelope grudgingly agreed to let her change the locks. Lissa’s concession was to agree to come to the main house for dinner at least twice a week, on Sunday and another evening of Penelope’s choosing.
The standoff held for quite a while. Penelope never quite accepted that Lissa was an adult, but even the distance afforded by the short walk from the pool house to the mansion helped Lissa feel more independent. I know that Lissa was relieved that her mother has spent most of her time in the last few years traveling all over the world. In fact, I don’t think Lissa knew where her mother was half the time, but I could always tell when Penelope was in town: Lissa would get quiet and tense.
It all escalated when Penelope tried to kill me earlier this year, for reasons we still don’t fully understand. Lissa says she has made a clean break with her mother, and I’m taking her word for it. We’re all still trying to get our heads around what happened.
Lissa has come a long way, both as a budding witch and as a human being. She is a valuable employee, and after some pretty dramatic ups and downs earlier this year, I’m pleased that I now can call her a trusted friend.
♦
It had been a long week, and I was hoping tonight would be quiet. We had only three appointments on the books, and I was confident that Lissa could easily handle two of them; they were simple pawn transactions, and she was perfectly capable of filling out the forms. Mine was a bit more complicated: a man was picking up a brooch that had been pawned years before for safekeeping by his mother, a noted witch of my mother’s generation. His mother had passed away earlier in the month, and in the process of closing out her estate, he had discovered the pawn ticket. Still, the transaction shouldn’t take long. Maybe, I hoped, I could get time later to take care of some of my never-ending paperwork.
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